#zamość blocks

[ostermad-blog]

For Dungeon23, I'm making towns and blocks for my Yiddish fantasy setting of Nowa Polska. We'll be starting with the town of Zamość, a town that has quite the unusual history. Zamość was built all in one go in 1580 by a team of imported Italian architects by Jan Zamoyski and modelled on Renaissance Italian cities. We run into a major setting-specific problem immediately: the Corruscation (which boiled the land and soured the seas) happens in the early 16th century, before the town was founded, and would have prevented hiring Italian architects, as hundreds of miles of impassible forest would have separated Italy from Nowa Polska. Ordinarily, I'd remove the city from my maps and leave the area empty, but Zamość was a major Jewish population center and is extraordinarily well-documented. We can sub in an Italian-educated architect already in Nowa Polska at the time of the Corruscation for Bernardo Morando (the Venetian architect for the city). Problem solved.

Onto blocks! (if you want to know what I mean by blocks, check out this lovely post by Alexis Smolensk: The Tao of D&D: Building Blocks) For Dungeon23, we build one room a day, so I'll strive to make 1 block each day. Once we populate Zamość, we'll move on to another city! If y'all have thoughts about where we might visit next, let me know!

Our first block will be the Great Market in hex 6,6. This Market-type block allows players to buy and sell all manner of goods. Due to the high foot traffic from all parts of the city, players who spend time here can ask questions about the city, learn about people of note, hear the hottest gossip, and so on. The Great Market is also where town festivals and celebrations are held, which provide their own opportunities for mischief and coin.

#gelgelim #dungeon23 #nowa polska #ttrpg #ttrpg design #blocks #osr #zamość blocks

[logisticstracking-blog]

Eurodis Tracking

Enter Eurodis Tracking number in online tracker tool system to track and trace your Courier, Parcel, Shipment and receive real time delivery status information.

TRACK

[adinserter block=”1″]

EURODIS GmbH Customer Service :-

Phone number : Not Found Email ID: Not Found

Eurodis Network Locations : Rungis, Romania, Algete, France, Avignon, Paris, Zamość, Budapest, Coquelles, UK, Italy, etc…

View On WordPress

[ostermad-blog]

(image from Armenian Tenement Houses | Zamość, Poland | Gábor Tikos | Flickr) Today for Dungeon23, we're continuing to write blocks in the city of Zamość. Yesterday, we did hex 6,5 (the Ratusz and nearby tenements). Our next block, hex 7,5, is mixed-use. Nearby to the Great Market, the Salt Market, and the Ratusz, (hex 3,7, we'll get there another day), this block boasts a tavern, an inn, and guild workshops. The second and third stories are dedicated housing: the inn has a half-dozen private rooms, the workshops house both the apprentices and family of the workshop's head, and the tavern employees live above the tavern. There are a few rooms available for long-term rent above the tavern, but the tavernkeeper would rather let the rooms stay empty than let untrustworthy folk stay there. This is still the respectable part of town, after all. The guild workshops might include a bakery, tailor, turner, or other trades that cater to the burghers' level of income and also aren't noisome (no smithies, for sure). Player characters can easily find short-term housing, of varying quality: the tavern floor is the cheapest, the inn's common room slightly nicer and more expensive, and the inn's private rooms the best one can get here. They can also get an excellent meal and good drinks, as all the burghers from the Ratusz will come here for lunch and dinner, and they'll likely frequent the tavern on the weekends to blow some steam off. Players hoping to ingratiate themselves with the Ratusz' burghers are likely to find much more success befriending them here, over a glass purchased at the player characters' expense, rather than accosting them at their place of work. Players who make friends with the residents of this block can get an earful of all the local gossip: recent guild feuds, spicy relationship speculation, rumors from nearby blocks, and so on. They would also be able to rent the apartments above the tavern for long-term housing that's less expensive than those available near the Ratusz. That'll do for now. I think we'll continue tomorrow with the next hex adjacent to the Great Market, hex 6,7.

#dungeon23 #city23 #blocks #zamość blocks #gelgelim #ttrpg #ttrpg design #osr #titterpig

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 15jan23 hex 8,5 - Tenement Workshops

Before we get to today’s block, I want to make a procedural note. We’ve been working in a spiral, extending out from the city’s center, which works passably well. However, in doing so, I omitted some rather important information from blocks 3,7 and 7,5 as I didn’t pay attention to the synagogue next door to both, which recontextualizes them somewhat. When we finish with Zamość and move on to the next city, I’ll try to place landmarks down first and then fill in the interstitial blocks. Block 3,7 errata: Much of the food available for purchase at the Salt Market is halal/kosher. Even the goyish food vendors are likely to look into paying the rabbi to certify them kosher. Block 7,5 errata: rather than szlachta apartments, these residences are for the high-rolling Jews. Okie, onto the new stuff. I debated calling today’s block mixed-use but decided to use Tenement Workshops to disambiguate between 7,5 and 8,5. We’ll find no inns or taverns here - visitors from out-of-town will stay with kinfolk, and the rigors of kashrut make maintaining a kosher tavern challenging. Most of these buildings will be workshops for Jewish crafters and artisans, with housing above. Now, the trade guilds were expressly Christian and thus did not permit Jewish members. The way both communities worked around this was twofold: as part of the condition of allowing Jews to settle within the city, the Jews were forbidden from specific trades (in Zamość, Jews were prohibited from being cobblers, furriers, and potters), and Jewish crafters formed their own guild-like associations (havurot). From the little research I’ve done, the strength of these havurot depended greatly on the degree to which the existing trade guilds resisted Jewish members. In our Zamość, we’ll say that resistance is fairly strong, and consequently there are several robust havurot. Jewish player characters will, as in blocks 3,8 and 7,5, find temporary housing and food through kin-relations, as well as be able to learn all the gossip the Jewish Quarter has to offer. Jewish characters without a kin-relation have an opportunity to entrench themselves into the Zamość Jewish community if they’ve a spare nibling or kid they can apprentice to one of the crafters. This does not come for free: it would require an act of service for that crafter, or a sizeable financial gift. Characters with a more duplicitous bent could suborn away dissatisfied apprentices, but doing so would burn any bridges they had in Zamość. Non-Jewish characters will find little of interest here. Some shopping, artisans they could commission for custom work, etc. 

#dungeon23 #city23 #blocks #city blocks #zamość blocks #ttrpg #ttrpg design #indie ttrpg #nowa polska #gelgelim

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 13jan23 hex 3,8 - the Zamość Synagogue

As promised, today we get to the (sizeable) Jewish population of Zamość. Sephardi Jews lived in Zamość from the city’s beginning, receiving permission to build a synagogue, mikvah, and cemetery within the city limits (something that, even in the religiously-tolerant Grand Duchy of Lithuania, could not be taken for granted). Jan Zamoyski, the founder of Zamość specially invited folks across the known world to live in the city, and the first Jewish residents were recruited from Venice and the Ottoman Empire. Ashkenazi Jews were not allowed residence in the city, which is a fascinating bit of history. Clearly a lot of politics going on here, and if I were a historian, there’d be plenty to plumb. But I’m not a historian, and our version of Zamość was built half a century after Nowa Polska lost contact with the rest of the world. That doesn’t mean we don’t have Sephardi Jews, however. It turns out that, roundabout when the Corruscation happens and our setting diverges from history, an Ottoman army had invaded the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Thousands of Ottoman soldiers and attendants with no way of going home. And, of course, a notable minority of them would have been Sephardi. These are the Jews who first settled in Zamość. Let’s turn from history to the block. We have the aforementioned synagogue, of course, as well as the mikveh (ritual bath) and a kahal. Jews within the Grand Duchy (and Nowa Polska, therefore) had the right of self-government and autonomous organizing. The kahal was both administrative building and legislative body of the Jewish people, for the Jewish people. All urban Jewish communities had a kahal which functioned as a secular center of Jewish life to complement the synagogue. Furthermore, we also have a few tenements for the wealthier Jews. Zamość also has a small Muslim population - the Grenadan artificers, as well as other remnants of that Ottoman army. As they are not numerous enough to warrant a permanent mosque, the synagogue doubles as a mosque on Friday afternoons and as needed for the other Islamic holy days. Where the rest of the city primarily speaks Polish, Yiddish and Arabic are the lingua franca of the synagogue and its environs. The synagogue block presents many opportunities for Jewish player characters - consulting with the rabbi, finding a minyan, studying Torah with the elders and wealthy (although there is no yeshiva in Zamość), even temporary housing. Muslim player characters have a dedicated place to worship, may seek the imam’s counsel, and get a lead on where the other Muslims in town live. Christian player characters (of all denominations) will find little for them in the synagogue block. Centuries of pogroms do not vanish after a few years of nominal religious tolerance.

#dungeon23 #city23 #gelgelim #nowa polska #zamość blocks #city blocks #blocks #ttrpg #ttrpg design #indie ttrpg

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 4jan23: hex 7,6 - tenements

While our last block was mixed-use due to its proximity to 3 major city landmarks, today's block is purely residential. Remember that Zamość is still a very young town - the year in Nowa is circa 1630, and Zamość was only founded in 1580. The population is only about 400, which doesn't require a lot of commercial infrastructure. The residences in block 7,6 house the burghers who work in and around the Ratusz as well as apartments owned by szlachta who spend most of their time on their country estates. Players who make themselves useful to the szlachta (if you do this, you are a class traitor) could be granted permission to live in their apartments. More realistically, these apartments provide excellent opportunities for larceny, provided you burgle the szlachta-owned ones, not those housing of the local clerks and solicitors.

#dungeon23 #city23 #osr #ttrpg #ttrpg design #gelgelim #nowa polska #zamość blocks

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon 23 17feb23 block 7,3 - Yiddisher Tenements

As we continue to loop around the city, block by block, we return to the Jewish part of town. These 2-storey tenements house many of the city’s Jewish population. There’s a tailor with several apprentices. A bakery, too - while homemade challah is superior to anything one might buy, it does take a lot of time that could be spent doing other things, and the bakery gets a lot of traffic on Friday afternoons before Shabbos.

The Jews here are solidly working-class, and they respect folks who respect labor. They’re also prone to gossip, and after a good introduction (via kinship networks, the innkeeper in 6,3, or something similar), someone with spicy tidbits from elsewhere in the city or the world beyond Zamość’s walls will find folks eager to spill gossip of their own. Things the players might learn:

The (goyish) farmers outside are overcharging Hershl the baker for grain, something they couldn’t do to a goyish baker due to the protection of the Baker’s Guild, and Hershl has no time to handle the matter themself. Rokhl the tailor has a sister, who is also a tailor, and they are bitter rivals. The sister, Hadassah, has recently moved to town and is imposing on Rokhl’s hospitality while she looks for her own place, but the word on the street is that Hadassah is trying to convince Rokhl’s customers to give her their business when she sets up her own shop.

#dungon23 #city23 #city blocks #blocks #gelgelim #nowa polska #osr #ttrpg #ttrpg design #indie ttrpg #zamość blocks

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 22jan23 hexes 5,8-7,8 - more Posh Tenements

I’ve had a rough few days and missed several posts, and since all of these are straightforward, I figured I’d mash them all together and move forward. These blocks are housing for more of the city’s elite. The Water Market (which is not a market but a square) is an open common space bordered by the nicest tenements in the city. Grenadan artificers, guild leaders, and wealthy szlachta make their homes here, as do their live-in servants (Downton Abbey is probably a decent reference point for them). Player characters with honorable intentions have little to do here without a letter of recommendation, and the wealthy folks here are unlikely to have much interest in a band of scruffy adventurer-types even with such a letter in hand. The servants all have families residing elsewhere in the city, likely in the tenements in the eastern part of the city (we’ll get there soon), and it would be much easier to make friends with them after befriending their families - to reiterate, most folks don’t take kindly to strangers accosting them while they’re at work. Player characters with dishonorable intentions will find many houses with treasures aplenty, although the large number of people (bosses and servants) who live there and are awake at all manner of hours would make such a theft challenging.

#dungeon23 #city23 #osr #zamość blocks #gelgelim #nowa polska #city blocks #blocks #ttrpg #ttrpg design #indie ttrpg #curious use of the word bosses #maybe this is a class-conscious ttrpg

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 7jan23 hex 5,6 - Even More Posh Tenements

Now that Shabbat is over, I can begin today's entry: the block in hex (5,6). As you can see, it's near the Ratusz, Zamość Academy, Great Market, and directly to the west lies the Zamoyski Palace. It's the premier place to live in Zamość, and thus the wealthiest and most influential of the local szlachta and burghers reside therein. If you'll take a look at the surrounding landmarks, our next go-around of blocks should be more varied and involve a little more history.

#dungeon23 #city23 #zamość blocks #gelgelim #nowa polska #ttrpg #ttrpg design #osr #blocks

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 26jan23 hex 3,5 - Town Fields

I went back and reread Alexis’ posts that outlined blocks as a game structure and realized I’ve fallen short of what these could be. Hopefully, you’ll soon see what I mean. Hex 3,5 is more town fields. Serfs working the land, producing food for the ordynat’s table and a little bit for themselves. These fields aren’t on the main entrance to the Zamoyski Palace, but they are right next to Lublin Gate, one of only two entrances to the city, and the Zamoyski Academy, so the serfs who work here are under different restrictions. On any given day, we’ll find dozens of wagons and travelers passing by the fields, we’ll find students playing hooky and looking for someone they can prank, we’ll find an artificer out for a walk, needing a break from the golem workshops in 5,5. There likely aren’t any soldiers about, unless they’re traveling to or from the gate. Player characters can bother the serfs at work if they like, but they won’t get much conversation out of them. Strangers pestering them likely means the start of trouble, and the serfs have a lot of work to do. Folk who know something about farming will have a somewhat better reception, as will folks who step in and lend a hand (and are somewhat capable - a ‘helper’ who makes more work is no helper at all). Asking about them as individuals, getting to know these serfs and hear their troubles will also endear the players to them. Once friendships have been made, the serfs of this block have access to a whole wealth of information. When do wealthy shipments enter and exit the city? Which soldiers like to kick serfs and which might bring a wineskin or two on their way off-shift? Which of the Academy brats are the children of powerful people? How does smuggling work for this gate? Befriending these serfs might mean an invitation to their homes to spend the night, introductions to the serfs working in other blocks, offers of concealment and transport to the fields outside the city if the characters need to flee Zamość clandestinely. We can see how this town field offers much more to the players than the previous two. Ideally, each block has something unique to offer, something I’ve fallen short on. Frustratingly, of course, none of this information should be visible to the players. There is no incentive to explore the city if the players know where the best spots already are, which fields have the serfs who know the good secrets, which posh tenements have the apartments with the most wealth and the least supervision. In that way, perhaps, it is good that I’ve been lax? I can still save part of Zamość for the players in my future, but then I do a disservice to you, the reader, by keeping the best stuff secret. For the purposes of #dungeon23, I’ll try to lay all the cards on the table, build architecture my players will never walk through in order to practice. That is, after all, what #dungeon23 is all about, yes? Practice.

#dungeon23 #city23 #gelgelim #nowa polska #ttrpg #ttrpg design #indie ttrpg #osr #city blocks #blocks #zamość blocks

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 18jan23 hex 8,7 - more mixed use

Today’s block is more mixed-use, mainly tenements, with a tavern and some guild-affiliated workshops taking advantage of the nearby storage. This block is quite close to the Water Market and surrounding posh tenements, so the industry is likely to be unobtrusive and artisanal. We learned a few posts ago that the Jewish inhabitants of Zamość were forbidden from cobblery, furriery, and pottery, which implies that these are likely the major guild trades. Based on their neighbors, the workshops here are likely to be cobblers’ and furriers’. While we do have a tavern to feed folk, we won’t have an inn, unlike the mixed-use block in 7,5, as visitors looking for private rooms (the chief amenity inns provide that taverns do not) are likely to have friends in the Posh Tenements nearby or would prefer to stay near the Ratusz. Player characters can eat at the tavern and, barring other accommodations appearing, sleep on the tavern floor for a small fee. The food is decidedly mid: the tavern’s clientele are the middle- and lower-class burghers residing to the east and southeast, not the wealthier folks to the west and northwest. The tavern provides a great place to meet people and, after making friends, learn the doings and dealings of the folk in adjacent blocks.

#dungeon23 #city23 #zamość blocks #blocks #city blocks #gelgelim #nowa polska #ttrpg #indie ttrpg #ttrpg design

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 16jan23 block 8,6 - Storage

Happy MLK Day. Read a speech or two of his, rededicate yourself to socialism, and rest.

Workshops and businesses need places to store raw materials and excess goods. This block is full of those places. Chiefly warehouses with perhaps a silo or two for grain. During the day, carts will deliver materials from outside the city and transport stuff from these warehouses to the stores and workshops in need of them. Players interested in, well, storing stuff in bulk can rent space for anything that’s not livestock. At night, things will be much quieter. There’s unlikely to be any security, due to the bulk of the goods stored here (it is rather difficult to discreetly haul planed timber, for instance) and the proximity of the adjacent tenements. Nevertheless, these warehouses can provide clandestine meeting places for thieves and radicals alike.

#dungeon23 #city23 #city blocks #blocks #zamość blocks #gelgelim #nowa polska #ttrpg #ttrpg design #indie ttrpg

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 12jan23 hex 3,7 - The Salt Market

Named for the salt that was imported and stored nearby, the Salt Market is an open commercial space boasting several semi-permanent stalls. Adjacent to the Zamoyski Academy, Ratusz, and synagogue, the Market is always bustling with activity and serves the less wealthy burghers. Player characters at the Salt Market can buy and sell goods. How exciting. For a little variety, let there be a tavern at the northern end of the salt market. The tavern’s primary patrons are the students at the Zamoyski Academy: a place to get cheap, filling food and blow off a little steam. While we might find some spillover from the Ratusz and Jewish Quarter, the students are rowdy enough to encourage such folk to find another place to eat. Do recall that a tavern at this time is more about food service than beverage service: nobody wants to deal with a bunch of drunk students, and the tavernkeeper is likely increasing the water in the drinks as the night goes on. But, for those looking to make friends with impressionable youth, this tavern is the perfect spot. Players with mercantile ambitions who befriend the merchants here could easily share stall space or set up their own stall to vend wares. Unlike the Great Market, which is in many ways the heart of the city, the Salt Market is a lower-key space. Next time, we’ll get to the Jews! Finally! Imagine talking about Jews in a Yiddish fantasy setting.

#dungeon23 #city23 #blocks #city blocks #zamość blocks #gelgelim #nowa polska #ttrpg #ttrpg design #hex map #i kid I'm so sarcastic and funny

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 9jan23 hex

Quick history lesson.

***

Back in the 8th century, the Umayyid caliphate conquered most of the Iberian Peninsula, leaving a few Catholic kingdoms in the northern part. Rather unhappy with the state of affairs, these kingdoms waged a centuries-long war to expel the Muslims and Jews. In the real world, they succeeded, conquering the last remaining Moorish kingdoms in 1492 and formally expelling all non-Catholics from the peninsula and marked the start of the Spanish Catholics forcing all the remaining Muslims and Jews to choose between conversion or death (the Spanish Inquisition begins in 1478). But we're not in the real world. In our setting, the Kingdom of Granada, backed into a corner by the invading Catholics, discovered something profound, something that changed the face of warfare forever. They learned how to make golems. Beautiful, bronze creations adorned with exquisite calligraphy and imbued with an indefatigable will. The Granadans unleashed their new creations alongside their armies and routed the united Catholic troops, ultimately retaking the entire peninsula. The Pyrenees prevented the Granadans from pushing further into Europe, and they were content to hold the peninsula. This posed a rather profound dilemma for the Holy Roman Empire and other Christian kingdoms in Europe: how do the self-proclaimed representatives of God's will on Earth deal with a military technology they do not understand and cannot seem to use themselves? Fortunately, after a hundred years or so of relative stability between the Granadans and Holy Roman Empire, Granadan artificers were more than happy to move to the courts of Christian Europe to act as advisors and tutors, for a suitable fee. Catholic scholars had assembled their own constructs, built from gold and the bones of saints, but they were unsettling, and the resurrectionists who built them were unsavory types that always smelled of grave soil and ash. Courts competed over having the best Granadan artificers the same way they competed over having the best musicians and artists, and thus Granadans spread throughout Europe. When the Corruscation boiled the land and soured the seas, access to the Kingdom of Granada and Northern Africa was cut off, but the Granadans already there were stuck. With the rise of supernatural terrors in the darkening woods, their golems became highly prized, and the knowledge of how to craft them doubly so.

***

Okie, loredump over. Hex 5,5 is right next to a number of very prominent landmarks: the Ratusz, the Zamoyski Academy, and the gardens of Zamoyski Palace off to the West. As Zamoyski Academy is one of three centers of higher learning in all of Nowa Polska, artificers of all stripes gather here in the hopes of improving their craft. The workshops here, closed to the general public, are a combination of exhibition hall and clockwork foundry. Most of the constructs built here are priceless. Consequently, the workshops have the second-highest security of any placein Zamość after Zamoyski Palace.Player characters are unlikely to gain legal entry to the Golem Workshops without an arm and a leg of work. After passing exhaustive tests, pupils from the Academy may choose to apprentice as artificers, but entry to the Academy is reserved for the children of szlachta and wealthy burghers. There are no scholarships. Players who perform a great service for the Ordynat (ruler of Zamość) would likely get a tour of the workshop and perhaps a gift of something made there, but little else.Players disinterested in legal entry would find rather a lot of near-priceless treasure. Gold, gems, rare inks, exquisite clockwork contraptions, and possibly even a near-finished golem. Assuming they can bypass the many security mechanisms and successfully exfiltrate with the loot, their heist would be the crime of the century.See, I told you things would get spicy.

#dungeon23 #city23 #osr #blocks #zamość blocks #gelgelim #nowa polska #ttrpg #ttrpg design

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 6jan23 hex 6,7 - More Posh Tenements

Today's block (6,7) offers the same opportunities as yesterday's in 7,7. Housing for the city's elite burghers. I'm having a bit of a rough day today, so I'm glad the block is a short and sweet one.

#dungeon23 #city23 #zamość blocks #blocks #osr #ttrpg #ttrpg design #gelgelim #nowa polska

[ostermad-blog]

Dungeon23 10jan23 hex 3,6 - Zamoyski Academy

Today’s block is another city landmark: the Zamoyski Academy, named after the Zamoyski family who founded the city and continue to rule it.

As mentioned previously, the Academy is one of three universities in all of Nowa Polska. Unlike a contemporary university, the Zamoyski Academy also offers secondary education to the children of szlachta and wealthy burghers. It is an expressly Catholic institution, with the Bishop of Chełm serving as honorary chancellor, but due to the religious tolerance decrees, all are welcome to attend the university if they can cover its fees. Player characters in need of experts, libraries, or rebellious youth would likely find them at the Academy. While becoming students would preclude adventuring, the Academy’s amenities are somewhat available to the public. The Academy’s faculty are simple to access: players can book appointments with the professor’s assistant (with the next available appointment anywhere from a week to a month away, scheduling that can be finessed with the right combination of social capital and charm) and reserve a small block of their time. Its library is exclusive, but one need only charm or bribe the senior librarian on-duty to get casual access. Finding anything (this is rather a while before Melvil Dewey, and thus each library has its own opaque organizational structure) is another question, but academically-minded characters with enough charm could learn enough of it to be navigable given a month or two of work. A letter of recommendation or friendship with library staff would greatly expedite the process. The student body is perhaps the most useful of all the Academy’s resources, but player characters would have a hard time ingratiating themselves with the students here at the Academy. Student housing and (most importantly) the eating and drinking establishments they frequent are in another block (one we haven’t yet covered), and player characters should seek them out there.

#dungeon23 #city23 #osr #gelgelim #nowa polska #zamość blocks #city blocks #blocks #ttrpg #ttrpg design